1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display and to electronic apparatus, and particularly relates to a transflective liquid crystal display capable of display with good coloring and high visibility in both reflective mode and transmissive mode, and also relates to an electronic apparatus using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, reflective liquid crystal displays are advantageous in that electric power consumption is low, since they do not have light sources such as back-lights, and have conventionally been widely used as accessory display units or the like for various types of mobile electronic apparatus and so forth. However, reflective liquid crystal displays use external light, such as natural light like sunlight, or illumination light, to perform display. Accordingly, reflective liquid crystal displays can suffer from the disadvantage that the display is not readily visually recognized in dark situations.
Accordingly, liquid crystal displays have been proposed wherein external light is used in bright situations in the same manner as with standard reflective liquid crystal displays, and an internal light source such as a back-light is used in dark situations so as to make the display visible. In other words, this liquid crystal displays employs a display method serving as both reflective type and transmissive type. The display method can be switched between a reflective mode and transmissive mode according to the surrounding brightness, thereby enabling a clear display even in dark situations while reducing electric power consumption. Thus, external light contributes to display in a reflection type display, and light emitted from an illumination device (back-light) (this light hereafter referred to as “illumination light”) contributes to display in a transmissive display. In the present specification, this type of liquid crystal display will be referred to as “transflective liquid crystal display”.
A transflective liquid crystal display generally includes a liquid crystal display panel wherein liquid crystals are sandwiched between a pair of substrates, and an illumination device provided on the opposite side of the liquid crystal display panel in relation to the observation side for casting light on the substrate face of the liquid crystal display panel. Further, a reflective layer (transflective layer) including a plurality of opening portions is disposed on the substrate at the opposite side of the liquid crystal display panel in relation to the observation side.
Also, in recent years, advancements in mobile electronic apparatuses and office automation equipment has come to demand colorization of liquid crystal displays. In many cases, colorization is requested from electronic apparatuses including the above-described transflective liquid crystal display, as well.
As for a color transflective liquid crystal display to meet these demands, a transflective liquid crystal display having a color filter has been proposed. Such a color transflective liquid crystal display with a color filter is arranged such that external light entering the liquid crystal display in the reflective mode passes through the color filter, is reflected by the reflector, and passes through the color filter again. Also, in the transmissive mode, light from the back-light also passes through the color filter. The same color filter is used for both the reflective mode and the transmissive mode.